Forest goes global
Thursday, May 31, 2012 at 1:15 It's World No Tobacco Day today.
Does anyone care? Someone must otherwise I wouldn't be up at this ungodly hour.
I have been invited to take part in a discussion about smoking on RTHK Radio 3 in Hong Kong. 'Backchat' is broadcast in the morning but Hong Kong is eight hours ahead of the UK so it will be 1.45am in Britain when I go on air.
Earlier today (yesterday) I spoke to the London bureau of Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese state news agency. The interview will be used on their English language news service and English language website.
I was also asked to do a studio interview for Al Jazeera but they wanted to talk about smoking in developing countries so I declined.
You can see their report here: Tobacco firms accused of thwarting controls.
Update: The discussion on RTHK lasted the best part of 30 minutes either side of a news bulletin that featured a surprising amount of news from the UK. (Andy Coulson has gone global.)
There were three other speakers – someone whose name I didn't catch, Professor Sophia Chan of the University of Hong Kong, and Yorkshire-born Judith Mackay, a "Hong Kong-based medical doctor and anti-smoking advocate".
Mackay's name was familar so as soon as I was off air I Googled her name. According to the World Health Organisation:
[In May 2007] Time Magazine named Dr Judith Mackay one of the "most influential people in the world" in recognition of her role as a leading campaigner for stricter tobacco control measures and vigilant critic of tobacco industry practices.
As a senior policy advisor to the World Health Organization, Mackay was one of the early architects of what is today a global momentum to implement smoke-free public places and workplaces and proven, effective tobacco control measures in countries around the world.
A Hong Kong resident for 40 years, Mackay was also a key player in the development of the landmark WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, one of the most widely and rapidly endorsed treaties in United Nations history.
Anyway, there's not much to say about the 'debate' apart from the fact that I was in a minority of one. Plain packaging was the main issue but the discussion included addiction, taxation and smoking bans.
Hong Kong has a smoking rate of just eleven per cent (the target is five per cent by 2022) and I would guess that of the remaining smokers very few were listening to an item inspired by World No Tobacco Day.
Certainly the handful of emails and texts that were read out were totally one-sided. One listener wrote that he/she had looked me up on the Internet and I was a "failed journalist" and a "stooge" of Big Tobacco. And that was one of the nicer ones!
The British presenter concluded the debate by reading out another text, "Light up Forest and reduce it to ash", which prompted a snigger from one of his guests in the studio. He then thanked us for taking part and declared, "Happy World No Tobacco Day to one and all."
Enough. It's three o'clock in the morning and it's time for bed.
Reader Comments (5)
Has anyone read the Al-Jazeera article? Apparently "One in two long-term smokers will die" - what happens to the other one?
Other than that I think it may be the most unpleasant article I've read for a long time.
That reminds me, must buy some today in protest!
From the report:
"One in two long-term smokers will die - half in middle age".
Let's do a little calculating.
I have a 'population pyramid' for the UK. If we take middle age to be from 40 to 60 years old, there are some 16 million people in middle age. Of those, some 25% are smokers. That is, 4 million people are middle aged smokers.
From ONS statistics, I have found that some 45,000 people died between 40 and 60 in Eng and Wales in 2010.
Now, even if we assume that ALL the 45,000 were smokers, then the percentage of middle aged smokers who died in middle age, as a proportion of all middle aged smokers, would be approx 1.125%. It is reasonable to take this figure as an annual figure since the number of middle aged people remains more or less constant.
So where on earth do these people get their figure of 25% (half of half of all regular smokers) from? Damned lies! I fail to understand why these people are not asked by the MSM (including Al Jaz) to justify their figures.
Frankly, having lived in Hong Kong and, given its proximity to mainland China, I'd be very surprised indeed if the smoking rate is really down to 11%.
Very, very, VERY surprised, Blad.